Handedness distribution and figure drawing ability in a deaf school population, with severe learning difficulties: a...

The handedness distribution of 71 deaf pupils with severe learning difficulties, was found to be similar to that reported by Soper et al. (1987, American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 92, 94-102) in a mentally handicapped sample, who also found a high incidence of ambiguously handed individuals. Soper's theory, however, that the "acquired" left-handed and the ambiguously-handed are more handicapped and so, we might infer, draw more primitive human figures, was not supported. The left, ambiguously-handed and right-handed had the same scores on human figure drawing. Neither was there a difference in handedness or figure drawing between the "acquired", the "genetic" and the "unknown" cause groups; nor between males and females.